While Alex McLeish’s second stint as Scotland manager clearly did not go to plan, the compensations from that period proved to be significant for the national team.

Without a struggling side earning a play-off spot in the Nations League, a famous night in Serbia under Steve Clarke would never have been possible.

For all we know, the years in international exile may have rolled on. The ongoing improvement which led to participation at the World Cup this summer might never have happened.

McLeish’s greatest legacy, however, was surely to persuade Scott McTominay to pull on a dark blue shirt after he travelled to Carrington in 2018.

Alerted to the Lancaster-born player’s eligibility by then Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho, the man who won 77 caps for his country could have been forgiven for feeling that the coup he pulled off was just never meant to be.

‘The beast from the east,’ McLeish recalled with a grin.

‘When I was forced off the train in Newcastle, they said “it’s not going any further, the weather’s knackered.”

‘So, I had to wait for a train down south. And I thought “at this point will I go home?”

‘And I thought, “no, I’ve come this far, so I’m going all the way”. Then I got to my hotel at five in the morning, the guy says, “oh, I thought you were a no-show, son.”

‘I said - “no - I’ve arrived and I’m needing a room.”

‘I didn’t go in for the breakfast as Mourinho said “just come in at lunchtime, get some food and we’ll have a chat.”

‘But he said he (McTominay) definitely wants to play for Scotland.

‘So, it was good to hear that from Jose.’

Mourinho liked what he saw the minute he set eyes on the player. It’s fair to say that not everyone at the club around that time was similarly enthused.

‘He was still just a kid, quite raw,’ McLeish recalled. ‘But he had the physique, speed and skill on the ball.

‘He was good in the air and also with the ball at his feet. It made it a no-brainer.

‘I’d gone to a couple of Man United games and they were just kind of breeding him into the system.

‘Listen, anyone would have done it and brought him into the squad.

‘The only problem we faced was that England were in the frame as well. But when I said to Scott, “I’d love you to play for Scotland,” he said “That’s the only team I want to play for.”

‘And all of a sudden we had a brand new young superstar.’

Truth be told, it would be some time before Scotland supporters began to place McTominay in such a bracket.

He had his moments early on for his country, but his deployment as a defender – by both McLeish and Clarke – did him no favours.

It was only in the qualifiers to Euro 2024 that the futility of that approach was accepted.

McTominay was outstanding as a central midfielder in the qualifiers, his performance and two goals in the famous win against Spain topping the lot.

In little over a year, he’d be a Napoli player. And within a season, he’d become a Serie A winner and voted Italy’s best player.

Many Manchester United fans were outraged that the club had sold him for just £25.7million.

Even some England supporters voiced their displeasure about the player slipping through their hands.

‘They have such a massive pot to pick from in England,’ McLeish reflected.

‘But I’m sure that privately, in some of their chats behind the scenes, they will have said ‘we should have got McTominay.’

‘But he chose Scotland. He wanted to to come. He wasn’t saying anything about England at all.

‘And that was the best news I could have got in that era of rebuild.’

While Clarke rightly got the plaudits for taking the team to three tournaments, McLeish has taken a huge amount of pride from the part McTominay has played in it all.

‘It’s incredible how he’s grown and grown,’ he added.

‘In the first few games, he was just trying to feel his way into the international scene. But he gave everything from that first call-up.

‘He’s played in just about every position in the team down the years. He was in the back four at one stage.

‘But he’s mainly operated in the middle of the field and he’s a real threat in the box and moving from middle to front.

‘The way he runs with the ball is just superb because he really knows what he’s doing.

‘He’s got massive confidence and I hope that a lot of young Scottish players coming into the game can take inspiration from what Scott has done.'

In a rare media conference this week, McTominay put his underwhelming displays at the World Cup in context.

Two days before the opener against Haiti in Boston, he underwent a controlled electric shock in hospital to restore a normal heart rhythm. Since then, he’s undergone a medical procedure to deal with the arrhythmia.

He returns to the Scotland squad a month after pulling on a Napoli shirt again against Frosinone.

With five goals in his past six matches, it feels like the player the Tartan Army grew to love is back with them.

Sebastien Pocognoli may soon feel he owes McLeish a word of thanks, too.

‘It’ll be a massive relief for the manager to get Scott back into the squad,’ he said.

‘You always want your best players available.

‘I remember back in my day, going to Kazakhstan when we had a lot of boys missing.

‘We were held in a bit of limbo. So, for Sebastien to get players into his team of that level will be massive for him. It could make a huge difference for Scotland.’